Welcome back to Animated Loops.
In this lesson, we're going to make a 3D loop.
We'll create a racing scene with our character rolling along a curve road.
Let's get started.
I have a new composition named 3D Loop,
1080x1080,
30 fps,
9 seconds long.
I have Start and End markers at 3 and 6 seconds for a 3-second loop.
We'll start by creating an arch with the Rounded Rectangle Tool.
Name this layer 'Arch'. Name
the rectangle within this 'ArchFront'.
Make the rectangle path size 500x900
with a roundness of 250.
No fill,
just a white stroke, 100 pixels wide.
Then I'm going to copy and paste my infinity loop logo into this shape layer.
You can design your arch any way you like.
Just make sure that the gap in the middle is 400 pixels wide.
You'll also need to put all of the elements of your arch design into a group.
Make the arch a 3D layer.
Then change the renderer to Cinema 4D which will make the
Geometry Options available. Under Geometry Options,
set the Extrusion Depth to 100.
Then on the arch group add a Side>Color attribute.
Make the side a light gray,
so it looks like it's in shadow under the arch.
Then on the Anchor Point set the Z value to 50,
so the Anchor Point is in the middle of the extrusion.
Now create a new composition named 'Road'.
Make it 6,000x600.
Create a rectangle the size of the composition. Name it 'Edges'.
I'll make this light gray too.
Duplicate 'Edges' and name this 'Road'. Reduce
the height of the rectangle in this layer to 400. And
I'm going to make it the dark gray from my color palette.
Duplicate the rectangle within this layer. Make this a darker gray. Then
reduce the width of the top rectangle to 100.
Move the horizontal position of the rectangle path to
-3,000. Add a repeater to this rectangle with 31 copies.
And on the repeater transform,
set the horizontal position to 200,
which creates alternating color stripes along the road.
Then back in the main 3D loop composition,
drag in the road composition and make it a 3D layer. Set
the X rotation to 90 and the Z rotation to 90. In
the Geometry Options, set the curvature to 100% and the segments to 180.
This makes it a half circle with one segment for each degree of the curve.
Then duplicate the road and change the X orientation to 180.
So now we have a full circle,
although we're only going to repeat a quarter of it for this loop.
Create a new Null and make it a 3D layer. And name this 'RoadRotate'.
Parent
the road layers and the arch to this layer. Move
the position of RoadRotate down to 3,600.
Then move the position of the arch up to around -3,100.
At the start marker, keyframe the
X rotation of RoadRotate at zero. Then at the end,
keyframe it at 90.
Back at the start,
duplicate the arch twice and unparent them both.
At the midpoint at 4:15, re-parent one of them to RoadRotate.
Then at the end,
re-parent the other.
Now we have a repeating 3D road with some arches.
Now I'm going to add some more detail around the edges.
Create a new rounded rectangle.
Make this 4x40 pixels with a roundness of at least 2.
Name it 'Posts'.
And make the color the same gray from the arch.
Solo this layer and move the rectangle path position up to -500.
Add a repeater to the rectangle. Give
this 3 copies,
no position transform, and a rotation of 11.25.
And on the rectangle transform, also add an 11.25-degree rotation.
Then group the rectangle and add another repeater to the group.
Give this 8 copies and
just a 45-degree rotation.
I did this because I want the posts to repeat all the way around the road,
but with gaps every 45 degrees for the arches.
Make this a 3D layer and
parent it to RoadRotate.
Move the position to -306,
0, 0.
Set the scale to 600% and the Y rotation to 90,
which should put it on the left side of the road. Under
Geometry Options, give it an extrusion depth of 2.
On the group, add a side color and make it white.
Then set the Z value of the Anchor Point to 1 to put it in the middle of the
extrusion. Duplicate
this layer and move the X position of the new layer to 306 on the right.
Now we'll make some ropes connecting the posts. Create
a new star shape player.
Solo this layer. No fill,
just a thin 0.5-pixels stroke. And
I'm going to make it dark yellow. Name
the layer 'Rope'. Give
the star 32 points. Make
the inner radius 510 and the outer radius 518. Set
the inner roundness to 120
and give the stroke a round join.
This creates a rope that's going to hang between the posts.
Make this a 3D layer and parent it to RoadRotate.
Set the position of this to -307, 0, 0.
Set the scale again to 600%.
And give it a 90-degree Y rotation
to put it on the left side of the posts. Under
Geometry Options,
add an extrusion of 0.25.
And also add a bevel depth of 0.5,
with a Bevel Style set to Convex,
which gives the rope rounded edges. Set
the Z value of the Anchor Point to 0.6 to put it in the middle of the posts.
Then
duplicate the rope and move it to 307 on the right.
Now we have repeating ropes on the edges. Next we'll add a sky. Duplicate
the road composition in the project window. Name this 'Sky'.
Open that composition and delete the road layer. Change
the composition height to 2,000.
And also increase the rectangle path height to 2,000.
Rename 'Edges' to 'Sky' and make it blue.
Now I'm going to add some stars,
but first I'm going to turn on my proportional grid. In the
grid settings, I have this set to 8 horizontal sections and 2 vertical.
The full length of the composition is 180 degrees of the circle,
so each section is 22.5 degrees.
We'll just create stars in one of these sections and then repeat it.
Create an ellipse, no stroke,
just a white fill.
Make the size 10x10.
Name the layer 'Stars'. And
move the circle to the top left section.
Then you can keep duplicating this ellipse, filling up this section with stars.
Try to spread them out randomly, but evenly spaced. Then
group all of the ellipsis
and add a repeater to the group.
Give this 2 copies with a repeater transform position of 0 and
1,000
to put it in the section below. Then
on all of the contents, add another repeater
with 8 copies and a repeater transform position of
750 and 0 to repeat them in all of the sections across the whole sky. Back
in 3D loop at the start frame,
duplicate the road layers and move them to the back.
Then replace these layers with the sky composition. Increase
the scale to 300%,
but make the Y scale 450% to compensate for the camera distortion,
keeping the stars roughly circular.
These need to rotate slower as they're much further away.
So duplicate the RoadRotate null and name this 'SkyRotate'. At
the start, parent the sky layers to this.
Then at the end, reduce the SkyRotate rotation to 22.5.
I want to move the view closer. So create a camera. Make
it 50 millimeters.
And I like to use a null to control the camera position too.
Name this 'CameraNull'.
Make this a 3D layer and parent the camera to it.
Move the CameraNull position to 540, 470,
300.
And also move the camera Z position to -1050.
Now we have a looping background scene.
So we're ready to add a rolling character.
Open the default rig composition and delete every layer besides CharacterNull,
BodyNull,
FaceNull,
MouthMatte, Eyes, Body, and Shadow.
And make MouthMatte visible.
Parent the shadow to CharacterNull.
Move this up to around 185 and make
the ellipse path size 350x125.
Make the color of this dark gray. And make
the layer 50% transparent.
Duplicate the body layer and name this 'BodyMatte'.
Move it above the face layers.
Then select the MouthMatte, Eyes, and Body layers,
and pre-compose these.
Name this 'FaceComp'.
Parent the FaceComp to the FaceNull and set it to use the BodyMatte layer above
as an Alpha Matte. And set it to continuously rasterize.
Inside FaceComp,
increase the body scale to 300%.
Then in the character composition, flip the vertical FaceComp scale to -100.
At the start marker on FaceNull,
set the vertical position to 280 and keyframe.
10 frames later, change this to -280, and make
this a hold keyframe.
5 frames after, copy and paste the start. Add a
loop expression from Character Tool.
Now we have a basic rolling ball. On
the BodyNull, move the Anchor Point down to the bottom of the body,
so the vertical position is at 200. Keyframe this at the start.
3 frames later, change this to 195. 3
frames after that, back to 200.
Easy Ease just the middle keyframe and add a loop expression.
Then at the start, we're going to keyframe the scale too at 99 and 101.
3 frames later, 101 and 99. 3 frames
after that, back to 99 and 101.
Easy Ease, add a loop expression.
And move the keyframes back 2 frames.
Now the ball has a slight bounce as it rolls,
but I need to adjust the shadow too.
At the start, keyframe the shadow scale at 100%. 3
frames later, reduce this to 98%. And 3 frames after that,
back to 100.
Easy Ease and add a loop expression.
Now the shadow bounces with the ball. Go
back to the 3D loop composition and drag in the character composition.
Set the position to 540 and 720,
and continuously rasterize.
Now the character is rolling through the scene,
but we can make it more interesting with some left and right movement.
Back in the character composition, at the start,
set the CharacterNull position to 290 and 540.
At the midpoint, move it over to 790.
At the end, copy and paste the first keyframe. Then
on the BodyNull at the start,
set the rotation to 5 and keyframe that.
At the midpoint, -5. At
the end, copy and paste the start.
Offset these all 20 frames later.
Then in time with these keyframes,
animate the shadow position. Move it 20 pixels to the right, and keyframe; then
-20 to the left, and
copy and paste the first keyframe at the end. Then move them 10 frames earlier.
Set the keyframe velocity influence of all of these keyframes to 50%.
You'll need to do position and rotation values separately.
And then add a loop expression to all of them.
This makes the ball move left and right with a slight rotation,
but we need to make it look 3D
On the FaceNull,
copy and paste the position keyframes to repeat them for the whole loop.
Then we're going to adjust the motion path with the Convert Vertex Tool.
On the first keyframe,
curve the motion path out to the left.
On the next bottom keyframe, curve it out about half as much.
On the next one, curve this out the same distance,
but in the opposite direction.
At the midpoint, the same curve as the first keyframe, but on this side.
The next one, back to the smaller curve on the right.
Then the smaller curve on the left.
And on the last keyframe, copy and paste the first keyframe.
Now it looks more like a rolling 3D ball. And we're done with the character.
Go back to the 3D loop composition.
Now we can add some obstacles to the scene.
Create a rounded rectangle.
Name the layer 'Crate'.
Make the size 300x300.
And make the roundness 50.
I'm going to give this a light brown fill.
Then you can add any more detail to the crate that you like,
giving it your own design.
Just make sure that whatever you add is all within one group.
Make it a 3D layer.
In Geometry Options, set the extrusion depth to 300.
And on the group, add a side color,
a darker brown.
Set the Anchor Point to 0, 150,
150 to put it at the bottom of the crate.
Then at the start frame, parent it to RoadRotate.
Set the rotation values all to 0;
the position to 100; -3,000;
0, and
the scale to 45%. Duplicate
the crate and name this 'CrateShadow'.
Delete all of the shapes apart from the main rectangle,
and set the extrusion depth to 0.
Set the Anchor Point values all to 0,
and set the X rotation to 90.
I'm going to make it the same color as the character's shadow, and
also 50% transparent.
I'm going to increase the Y scale to 55%,
just so it's visible under the front of the crate.
I'm going to retime the character layer to start at 20 frames.
Then select the Crate and CrateShadow,
and at the start marker, unparent them.
Go to around 3:17 and re-parent them to RoadRotate. Duplicate
both and parent them again.
Then go to around 5:02 and re-parent them to RoadRotate.
Set the X position of both to -100 to put them on the left.
The shadows should ideally be curved because the ground is curved, as right now,
when they're coming over the horizon, they poke over the edge slightly.
You can fix this by just starting the layer when it's first visible on the side
of the horizon. For the second shadow that should be at 4:25, and
for the first shadow that should be at 3:10.
And at the start, you can see there's a crate visible, which isn't at the end.
So I'll duplicate it at the start,
unparent it, and then re-parent it at the end marker.
Now you have a 3D loop.
That's where I'll end the loop for this lesson.
I'll see you in lesson 9.
Thanks for watching.